


Where your footsteps lead

by archiesfrog



Category: The Tillerman Cycle - Cynthia Voigt
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 20:51:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12896556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archiesfrog/pseuds/archiesfrog
Summary: For Maybeth family is about home, and home is the place and the people. John Jr. hasn’t been home in a long while.





	Where your footsteps lead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SaraJaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/gifts).



> Happy yuletide SaraJaye. I loved your prompt, and hope you enjoy this little slice of Maybeth's story.
> 
> Thank you to [to be revealed] for the beta, [I'll put the names in later] for cheering me on and [really, I'll the info January sometime] for making yuletide great as always.

It was a long hot summer the year that James went to university, and the days were still muggy long after he had left. His leaving changed the place, Maybeth thought, with her hands in the dishes on a proper Chesapeake summer evening. Dicey going away had too, but the changes were different. It made Maybeth think about going away. Not herself, she was home and staying. But other people - they were always gone and leaving, and the reasons weren’t clear.

Maybeth didn’t know where people went. They were there, then they left. Not there was gone. She knew gone away, and she knew gone dead, and she knew right well they were different. So perhaps she did know where people went. She just didn’t know why. 

And maybe it shouldn’t have mattered, but momma was gone, and when she saw Gram’s eyes get distant, she knew it wasn’t just Maybeth thinking on her. Dicey said it wasn’t just her momma being gone that made Gram sad, but momma’s brothers too. Bullet, gone too far away and then further, and John Jr, and he was just gone. Gone away, not dead, gone away, not dead. The words sang over in her mind, quiet lyrics with a plaintive melody. The not dead mattered, because the not dead was still alive, and the still alive was out there, somewhere. Alive, away, alive, away. 

She knew Sammy and James had thought the same about their dad, alive away, but she didn’t care about him. He had made momma sad, and not the way Bullet made Gram sad, all warm under the cold and hurt. He had made momma cold and small and sad.

Maybeth felt small sometimes. Not the short kind, where everyone else was bigger and you couldn’t see far because people got in the way. She felt small and invisible, like when Sammy hadn’t let her go crabbing at first, and asked Robbin’s help instead. She felt small when James brought home friends who argued fast and sharp and looked right through her when she didn’t argue back.

The suds were drying on her arms, and she carefully let the water out, polishing the glasses before sliding them onto the shelf. She wondered if Uncle John would be like James’ friends, the way James thought and talked about him, driven and quick and out away to university. But Gram didn’t get small-sad when she thought of him, just sad, angry and hurt all bundled up in one.

 

Maybeth leaned her bike up against Millie’s store. She’d biked over after school to pick up some meat, planning a dinner that might make Gram’s eyes light up the way they did when she was happy, even though she’d scold Maybeth for using some of her pocket money on a fancy dinner.  
She stopped a while outside the store, in the shade of the building, cooling down some. Across the street a mother held her toddler’s hand and clasped a baby in her arm. Maybeth watched as the toddler strained against his mother’s grasp, trying to break free. They struggled that way across the street, and to the door of the shop, where the boy whined louder and pulled his mother to standstill. Maybeth watched his frowning face. His stocky body and blond head reminded her of a young Sammy.

“Here,” Maybeth said softly, holding out some marbles, “He can play with these while you shop, if he wants?” The little boy grabbed for the marbles, suddenly grinning. He crouched down immediately, setting up a game in the shade.

The mother hesitated, then smiled herself. “Thank you,” she said. “There’s been no living with him today.” Her accent was clipped, shortened vowels and fast paced. Not from round here, thought Maybeth.

“It’s hot for little children, especially if he’s not used to it,” Maybeth replied.

“You can tell we’re just visiting, can’t you? We came down with my husband, to see where he was raised. But he’s busy and you’re right, it’s so hot here, and Karl’s been wanting to get on the water all day. He’s been listening to his dad’s boating stories too much.”

 

The man was standing by edge of the road, staring into the sea but standing on the grass verge. Maybeth went to cycle on by, swerving around him, but stopped instead, caught by the intensity and surprise in his face as her turned see her. He had a sharp face, brown hair cut tidy and short.  
She had nothing to say to this stranger, no reason to stop, but she hesitated anyway. Perhaps it was the little boy at the store, reminding her of Sammy, but she saw an echo of James in him, not in his face but his body, tension clutched in tight shoulders. He turned as she paused, and she stopped outright at the look in his face, shocked open. 

“Lisa?” The tone was sad and surprised in one.

“No.” Maybeth said, and she thought how to say what she was almost thinking, of the James echo in his face and the startled tone in his voice.  
The man didn’t wait for her thoughts, rattling on.

“No, of course not. You look like Liza, but that was years ago. You’re far too young. Besides, she probably didn’t look that much like you anyway. A classic case of pareidolia, seeing what the brain is primed to expect rather than what the eyes perceive. It’s summer, there are a lot of out of town visitors, and you’re probably not even a local.”

Maybeth opened her mouth, thinking she ought to respond to some of that, though she couldn’t find a question in the man’s run on sentences. Instead, she found herself saying “Your son looks like Sammy.”

They stared at each other in mutual confusion, and Maybeth felt herself starting a blush, wanted to hide, peddle away fast. She stood still though, because she was right, and certain, and Tillermans don’t take the easy way.

John blinked at her, and said slowly. “Bullet died before you were born, whoever you are, and my son doesn’t look much like him anyway, more like Lisa, and something of me.”

“My brother Sammy,” Maybeth explained. “We both look like Momma, Dicey says, and I think Gram agrees, though she doesn’t say so.”

His face softened, confusion fading to something more wistful. It prompted Maybeth to bravery.

“We have family dinner Friday nights, at six o’clock, and it can always stretch to a few more. Bring your wife and children too.”

 

Maybeth doesn’t mention seeing Uncle John by the ocean road, but she prepares more potatoes Friday night, and polishes the forks. She’s setting the food on the table when she hears the high pitch piping of a toddler. She sets down the pan and straightens the plates, going outside to stand with Gram in the veggie garden as family come around the path to home.


End file.
